IHT: Chief of radical Muslim group in Pakistan says Barack Obama, in his UN speech, was "instigating people to make blasphemous movies and caricatures."

Warren Ellis at Vice says that blasphemy has nothing to do, really, with God:

. . . the gods and prophets don’t even notice. The latter are dead and the former never showed any signs of life. Blasphemy, like heresy, is thoughtcrime: a questioning of institutions, authority structures, and the way we live. When I wipe shit on the face of your god, I’m not doing it to your god—I’m doing it to you, because it’s you who serve it and you who use it as justification of your position. It’s a political act. It does, however, allow the state to pick up one of its most ancient weapons.

Hussein Ibish at Now Lebanon, opposing blasphemy laws, wants the US and other western nations to also look to their own prohibitions on "hate speech."

WaPo's Dana Milbank mocks political atheists following the SCA's briefing in DC yesterday, and makes a point of focusing on what SCA chief Edwina Rogers was wearing.

Sharon Hill has a sad reminder of the violence and murder visited upon women accused of witchcraft in Africa.

UN's climate change chief is optimistic about rejection of the denialists.

Meanwhile, justice is sought in Connecticut for those who lost their lives after being accused of being witches in the 17th century.

Want to be free of "excessive thinking"? Echart Tolle is coming to DC to lighten your burden. (He's also going to be at the Religion Newswriters Conference, which I'll be at too. Maybe he can lobotomize me.)

Author Thomas Harrop writes in to let us know that he has a new book to help secular families get some ideas about how to celebrate a nonreligious Winter Solstice.

Stephan Marche at Esquire thinks atheists should leave the religious to their intra-sectarian squabbles:

I don't think atheists should relish these struggles, but we should pay attention, because these debates are obviously far more important to the future of the United States than anything the miniscule fragment of nonbelievers might care to debate. We should just step back and let it all happen without our involvement. Hopefully, we might even learn to be more tolerant of our cosmically deluded brethren. Religion is clearly not some overarching conspiracy or nefarious hierarchy, as so many atheists have been screaming. It's much more chaotic than that. Just people trying to figure out what the hell's going on.

Russell Blackford argues that the contraceptive mandate case of O’Brien v. US Department of Health and Human Services was a slam dunk for church-state separation, helpfully reminding us, "no one is actually required by her religion (or at least by Catholicism) to run a mining company."

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Paul Fidalgo has been communications director of the Center for Inquiry since 2012. He holds a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University, and has worked previously for FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy and the Secular Coalition for America. Paul is also an actor and musician whose work includes five years performing with the American Shakespeare Center. He lives in Maine with his wife and kids. His blog at the Patheos network is iMortal, and he tweets at @paulfidalgo.